


Memories of Dwellurn

by krazieLeylines



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - War, Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Feralstuck Trolls, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Hermaphroditic Trolls, Magical Humans, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, War Between Humans and Trolls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:49:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krazieLeylines/pseuds/krazieLeylines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If home was truly where the heart was, then at first glance Rose had nothing to worry about. Upon closer inspection, if one was to realize that her heart was with her friends, it could be agreed that she had much to worry about indeed.</p>
<p>In which everyone is an orphan of the war, and home is where everyone wants to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Equal

Dwellurn was the planet’s name, though a lot of the residents merely referred to it as home. 

It was a rich habitat, not of wealth, but of culture. The two predominant species were the humans and trolls, the former being a highly adaptive race with a flair for the various sorcerous-sciences, and the latter being biologically diverse species, with varying inborn abilities based upon their place in the highly controversial blood caste system. The humans were led by a tribesman named Jacob English who was gifted in many martial skills, while the trolls were protected by a horrorterror, or space monster, called Gl’bgolyb, her horrendous voice kept down by the last fuchsia-blooded troll, and by extension the last troll with pure royal genes, a mere child.

A child that shared most of her days with her fifteen friends, a mix of both other trolls and humans, in the meadow just down the hill from Jacob and his family’s palace.

\--

_Sixteen young figures, perched right on the edge of pre-adolescence, hunkered down together in a form loosely likening to an oval. Slightly closer to the middle of the group, on either side, sat their dual leaders, who ruled their social circle with all the power that friendleaders were granted. Their peers looked to them for their rule on a great many topics, including determining blame in squirmishes amongst their number, which activities they would tackle in play, and influence regarding what traditions had to be followed to maintain the status quo._

_One was Feferi, and opposite her sat John, the younger child of Jacob and his wife, and a prodigy in wind magic, a rare trait passed down his bloodline, making him a highly anticipated heir to his father’s throne. Like all children, their friends were intrigued by all things to do with the romanticized mirage of a ruler, and the hypothetical future of such a ruler was a popular topic of conversation._

_“You could hawe, like, any mate you wanted, right?” Eridan asked John, flopping onto his stomach and playing with a weed hidden in the grass. “Or, er, female mate, anyhow, ‘cause you humans have all them funky rules about who can be with who.”_

_John, who was just beginning to see girls as romantic options rather than just another flavor of friend, had to sit back and ponder the question, which he hadn’t considered before. He thought back to his lessons, and shook his head. “I can’t just pick any girl,” John answered, “She’s got to be special. Someone who can preserve the strong family tree. Someone who has a lot of magic in her blood. That’s why my teacher told me, anyway.” After he was done, he gave a shrug and then a not so subtle glance to his friend Rose, who was curled up under the tree with a book._

_Since she was too caught up in her fantasy land, Kanaya reached over to shake Rose’s knee, pointing and whispering in her ear to get her caught up. Rose grinned back at John, her eyes sparkling with mischief that made him sweat._

_Dave, Rose’s twin, caught the look that was exchanged, and quickly stood up, taking a branch that had fallen from the tree hanging above them and brandishing it at John. Best friend or not, friendleader or not, he was determined to protect his sister’s honor. “Hey, you gotta best me in a duel if you want to take Rose’s hand, bro,” he informed John, giving him a playful swat over the back of his shoulders that was hard enough to sting but not bruise._

_“En garde!” John took to the challenge as eagerly as any kid his age would, grabbing another branch and leaping up to cross his pretend blade to his friend’s._

_This show caught the attention of all their friends, some who had been paired off into smaller conversations, and they all moved away to make an imaginary stage for the sparring boys. Certain trolls clustered closer in pre-assigned, unspoken pairs as was their nature, acting out a generations-old ritual that in maturing, they would one day call moirallegiance. Eridan, who had a more formal position as Feferi’s guardian, took to this role more naturally than his friends did._

_John’s older sister, who had climbed the tree to keep her own distance from the pretend fighting, called down, “Do the windy thing, John!”_

_The phrase caught on, and soon there was a chanting chorus of, “Do the windy thing!” A few trolls began to clap their hands to the beat, and Jade waved her own twig down at her sibling as Aradia climbed up to join her._

_“You know I can’t do the windy thing outside of my lessons,” John protested, though it was obviously half-hearted._

_“C’mon, John, purrlease?” Nepeta leaned forward, cocking her head and giving a kittenish grin._

_“Please, who the frack are we even going to tell?” Karkat added with a shrug._

_Dave swung his branch at John a couple more times, taunting his friend with a few taps to his shoulder. “I bet mister goody-two-shoes is too good for breaking rules,” he teased._

_“That’s it.” John backed up a bit, dropping his own pretend sword. He pressed his palms together, and the group went instantly quiet. After a couple of seconds, his breathing getting deeper, John shoved a small condensed sphere of air at Dave, knocking him back onto his behind with a hoot and a proud, “Who’s the goody-two-shoes now?”_

_There was a round of applause as John took a bow for everyone._

_“Looks like you’ve won the maiden.” Everyone turned to look at Rose, who was peering over the top of her book at John, hiding the smirk she kept behind it. “What now, sir heir of the English?”_

_It was somewhat of a difficult question for a ten year old youth, but he took in it in stride. John took a few steps forward, pondering the array of options, some mischievous, others sweet. He decided upon one of the latter as he held out a hand to her, at a comfortable distance. “May I have this dance?”_

_“Certainly.” Rose turned to her friend leaning on her shoulder. “Mind holding my book, Kanaya?”_

 

“Rose?”

The young woman looked up from her crystal ball, blinking as she came to from the spell she had been working on. “One moment,” Rose requested, holding a finger up to her visitor. It was always hard coming back to the present after swimming through her memories for an extended amount of time. 

“Rose, you’re going to want to hear this.”

However, Rose didn’t budge. She didn’t want her sense of time to become mangled, to lose bits of the past that she had worked so hard on bringing to life. The crystal ball in her hand swirled with images of the most recent knowledge she had placed into it. On its face two young figures danced underneath a tree, hands clasped and a respectable amount of personal space placed between them. Their circling was slow, a heaviness of feeling felt through their expressions rather than their movements.

After watching them with lips that twisted halfway between a smile and a grimace, Rose waved her hand over the crystal ball, and the sphere went blank. “Alright Terezi, what am I going to want to hear?”

“We found a lead on him.”

\--

HONK.

The sound echoed down the shadowed halls, resonating through the air too fast for the man to decipher where the source was. He stood frozen in the spot he was standing, caught at a dead end. Turning around in place, he went stiff once more as the sluggish _clip… clop…_ of hooves reached his ears. 

Body buzzing with tension, he sprang back the way he had come, tugging at the closest doorknob, trying to pry the door open with sheer force of will. When the thick iron door didn’t budge under his relentless tugs, he ran to the next one, and then across the hall to the next one. The approaching hoofsteps amplified in volume at a gradual, bantering pace, but they did nothing to ease the man’s anxiety.   
Just as he was getting desperate, hand sloppily missing the doorknob a couple of times in its resolve to shake like a leaf in a storm, a door swung open, revealing another hallway, the ending too far off for the man’s non-nocturnal eyes to see.

The man was about to pause to let out a held in breath, but the once playful patter of hooves on the cement increased into a trot.

HONK.

Barely holding back a scream of terror, the whine catching at his front teeth, he sprinted down the new corridor, head whipping side to side in search of an escape route. By the accelerating gallop following him, it was clear his pursuer was closing the distance between them.

Faster and faster, one foot in front of the other, the quarry raced to pick up his own speed, nearly tripping over his own feet as he sought a place of safety. 

At one point he made the fatal move of glancing back over his shoulder, only to take in a sharp breath at the intimidatingly enormous silhouette of his shadow. His horns nearly scraped the ceiling, and clutched in each hand at the end of his densely muscled arms were twin juggling clubs. A thick mane coated his head and shoulders, but not enough to curtain over the frightening ghost white face paint decorating his alien features, extending his cruel fanged smile from ear to ear.

The clown slowed back down to a jog, his hooved feet moving with a decidedly spirited lightness despite his tall, wiry figure. 

He opened his maw, his pearly incisors glowing against his pitch black gums, and let out a gleeful HONK.  
Pulse pounding anew, reminding him to move, the man tore his gaze away from the nightmarish fiend stalking him and drove himself to sprint quicker than before, breaths coming out in thick pants as he attempted to suck in enough air to fuel his mad dash. 

“Where you all trying to escape to, motherfucker?”

After a pause, as though the clown expected an answer, his grin fell, and he took off after the man once more, body bent forward as he galloped with animalist speed after his target. 

“Leave me alone!” The cry for mercy was strangled, and went unheeded by the clown on his heels.  
Barely any time passed before the man’s shadow had gained on him, and he had to duck under the heavy swing of a club before it took from his head from his shoulders. The weapon left an indentation in the wall, and it took a moment for even the clearly powerful troll to pull it free again.

The man took the opportunity to create some distance between them, but any advantage he felt he had was imagined, merely a way for the clown to play more mind games with him.

The truth was, the clown could have killed him ten minutes ago. He was just enjoying the chase.  
However, the fun factor was starting to wear thin. With a more dedicated growl, he lunged forward, pinning the man to the wall with his elbow, watching as his head snapped against the plaster. Pulling back, he watched the other crumble to a halfhearted ball on the ground, face turned from the clown as he coughed and heaved.

The man waited for the blow to his head that would end it all, but when it didn’t come after a couple of seconds, he snuck a look to the alien out of the corner of his eye.

HONK. 

With his club raised high over his horns, the clown stood statue stiff in his pose, not yet bringing it down, the playful smile gone from his lips and leaving an ugly expression in its place, teeth bared in a silent snarl.

“That’s enough, Gamzee.”

Instantly, the tension drained from the clown’s clenched muscles, and his arm slowly fell back to his side, hanging limp and inoffensive. The voice who had commanded his reaction with such ease was dark but feminine, rich with experience but charming with youth. Its owner came down the hall, another tall alien figure in tow, her face veiled by a thick cloth. Sweeping robes dragged behind her sandaled feet.  
She came over the man, palms pressed to one another as though in prayer. “So,” she spoke again, that same pleasant tone, “you would be the Doctor Houston that I’ve been looking for.” She opened her hands, a soft sphere of light levitating between them, reflecting the gentle lavender color of her eyes.  
“And you must be some sort of witch,” the man returned, watching her magic spread and dance.

Behind her, the other troll stepped forward, and in the new well-lit barrier the woman had woven around them with her spell, it was revealed that she too was female, with sharp angles and a pair of pointed shades sitting at the end of her sloping nose. Over the rim of the crimson lenses of her glasses were bug-like eyes the same dazzling shade of red. Below them, a mouth full of shark teeth unfolded into a wicked grin.

“Actually, I’m a seer,” the woman spoke, “but that’s a conversation for another time, with another person. My friend Terezi has been very eager to talk with you, and I don’t want to keep her waiting any longer than necessary. Terezi?”

As soon as she was given the floor, the female alien stepped forward, talons click-clacking on the concrete and two hellish wings revealing themselves behind her, casting a shadow over the man still squatted below them all. She raised a cane with a dragon’s head at the top, its sharpened beak causing Doctor Houston to flinch at its sight. Terezi’s scaled tail slithered at her feet like a snake as she built up the tension with silence. 

“I-I don’t even know you,” the man protested, trying to melt into the wall behind him the more she advanced, his voice cracking.

“But I know you, or at least, I am very familiar with your work,” Terezi returned smooth, purring over her words, “And I have to say, I’m not a fan.” She pulled the cane apart, unsheathing her blade so that she could point it at his throat. “You, Houston, are under arrest.”

Seeking sympathy from the other human, the man gasped, “Stop her!” He fumbled for a badge in his inner breast pocket, showing it to the others. “I am here under the protection of Senator Fowler. He has extended his diplomatic immunity to me for the sake of my research!” He ducked under the shadow of Terezi’s wing, trying to extend the badge for the seer to read.

“Senator Fowler, hmm?” The woman lifted back the veil, revealing a rather attractive face with a twist in her simple smile. “It’s good to know he is also involved in this crime, thank you.”  
“Wait, no, but—”

“Unless you haven’t already pieced the puzzle together, brother,” the tallest one, Gamzee, spoke after keeping to himself for a while, “we ain’t with the motherfuckin’ law.”

The dragonoid troll whipped her tail in irritation, but nodded to confirm her partner’s remark. “The law is corrupt. I will not stand with your corrupted faux justice. I stand for fairness and equality, and for protecting the peace of the people. All the people.” With a clap she flapped her wings once, twice, and a third time. “That involves both humankind and trollkind.”

Apparently done with talking, she swiftly took his wrist, twisting until she felt the crack of bones under her clawed grip. She ignored his cry of agony, taking his other wrist, and snapped a pair of handcuffs on him.

“She fucking broke my wrist,” he pleaded, again looking to the seer for some sort of reaction.

“Normally,” she returned, automatic and with the same smooth, flat tone, “I would agree that that tactic was a bit unprofessional, but from what I know of your own work, professionalism isn’t one of your virtues.” Her tone then turned dark, pained and raw. “I saw what happened at Calhoun, Doctor. I saw the result of your research. I saw the tens of thousands of young trolls, or at least the remains of their forms molded in the ash. Be thankful you are at Terezi’s mercy, and not my own, for I would not be nearly as kind to you.”

As he gaped at her, unable to form a sentence, Gamzee slammed a club against the wall. “Get up on your motherfuckin’ feet, godless bastard. We’re gonna be your judge, jury, and bitchtits executioner.”  
“Then why not kill me?” Still, he scrambled to his feet, fearing the next blow would be to his skull.  
“Because we are under direct orders not to kill you until directed,” the human woman replied, her former composed form having returned, “Our superior requested that she get the opportunity to interrogate you first. Should you survive the interrogation, it will fall to us to end your life.”

She was about to turn and walk away, but paused, raising a finger as though she had just had an idea. “Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Rose Lalonde. You shouldn’t have been so sloppy with your research, Doctor, because you’ll come to rue the mistake that led my colleagues and I to you like a moth to a flame. What mistake, you may ask? I’ll allow you the chance to find the answer for yourself. You’re going to have a lot of free time before we meet again.”

The clown gave a chuckle, as Terezi tugged at the string she had attached to the chain of the handcuffs. When the man had the audacity to whine a complaint, he was given an immediate club to the back of his knees. He had to scramble back up before Terezi lifted him by the wrists.  
Rose led them with her light back down the hall.

\--

A small, plump lady sat at the front desk, her painted nails clicking at the keys at her computer. She paused in her work, playing with a lock of cropped honey hair and pursing her bubblegum lips as she checked her watch for the third time that hour. Placing her hands on the counter so that she could lift her upper torso over her desk, she motioned to the portly man asleep at the corner. “Mr. Whitney,” she called in her sweet little songbird tone, “Oh, Mr. Whitney!”

Mr. Whitney startled, nearly dropping the book he had laid across his stomach. He glanced around, drowsy and seeming unaware of where he was. Finally he met the woman’s gaze. “Patricia,” he scolded her with a gentle tone, “I told you to call me Konnor.” 

“I couldn’t do any such thing, Mr. Whitney,” Patricia replied, hands placed over her heart to show him her sincerity, “What would your dear wife think?”

Konnor skillfully replaced the bookmark to his new place with his thick fingers, and snapped the book closed. “Patricia, my wife has opinions of a great many subjects, but none whatsoever of what name the secretary and our mutual friend uses to address me. I would really prefer you to stop using such formality with me. My wife is the one in control around here; I am merely the book pusher.” Before she could argue with him, he waved her off. “What did you wake me for anyway?”

“Oh!” Patricia sat back in her chair and began to busy herself with paperwork. “Nothing really,” she admitted sheepishly, “I am just wondering if now would be a good time to start worrying. Rosie and her team left almost exactly seven hours ago. Counting the two hours there and back… well, don’t you think three hours is a preposterous among of time to track a person down?”

“Well,” Konnor began, scrunching his face up as he rolled that around in his head, “I suppose it would depend on the person and how good he or she is at hiding. Who was their quarry today?”

Patricia raised a finger, thought a moment, and put it down. She turned to her computer and began to click at the keys once more, using the mouse to scroll through various digital files until she found the one with the information she sought. “A man known primarily as Dr. Phineas Houston,” she answered, “Nasty fellow. Uses young trolls, usually under the age of twelve, in his chemical experiments. Poor souls.” Patricia made a cross over her bosom, closing her eyes for a silent moment. 

Konnor folded his arms across his stomach and frowned, joining her in her mourning. When she opened her eyes, he gave a sad cough. “What sorts of chemical experiments?”

A few more clicks and some scrolling, and Patricia had his answer. “Oh my. He was employed by Senator Fowler to research and design innovations in chemical warfare. There’s no mention of whether or not Senator Fowler knew about his inhumane experiments. For his sake, and our company’s sake, I do so hope not. God knows how the public will respond to us arresting a politician.”

“Patricia, the public knows nothing of our actions,” Konnor teased her lightly.

“Well, they’re bound to notice if we arrest a Senator, now aren’t they?” She wagged her finger at him, a playful smile on her lips. The phone beside her rang, and she jumped in her seat. “Oh goodness, it’s about time. One second, Mr. Whitney.”

Picking up the phone, she pressed a couple of buttons and spoke into the receiver, “Miss Mauve here, how may I help you?”

Konnor laughed softly at her, picking up his book again and flipping it open to where he had left off.  
“You nearly had me worried sick, Rosie,” Patricia said after a pause, flipping her curls out of her face, “You really should—Oh? Stopped for a bite, did you? Did I or did I not advise you to bring your own lunch? Hmm. Ahumm. I see. Yes, hello there Gammy, I can hear you snickering in the back, don’t you sass me. Did you bring the doctor with you? Oh, wonderful. Alright, one moment.”

After hanging up, she hopped down from her chair, brushing off her pencil skirt, and scampered off to the door. She entered the series of numbers into the keypad above the handle, waited for the light to turn green, and opened the door to allow Rose and her company inside.

Rose led the way, stepping to the side as Terezi yanked Dr. Houston forward and Gamzee brought up the rear. 

“Hello Patricia, Konnor,” Rose greeted them, taking a peek at the title of the book the former held, “Taking an extended break today, are you, Konnor? Or did you take your lunch at two now?” She walked over to chat with him as Patricia ran back to the phone to dial Mrs. Whitney. Her conversation with the other was short, consisting of few words other than, “They brought Houston.”

Konnor laughed heartily, placing the book down on his stomach as he shook his head at her saucy attitude. “I do plenty of work around here, Rose, don’t go taking that tone with me.” He turned to the doctor, and clucked his tongue. “And you would be Houston?”

But the man refused to speak or look at him, head turned slightly downwards as he glared at air.  
“He hasn’t said a word for at least an hour or two,” Terezi informed Konnor, shrugging her shoulders, “Fine with me. If he had, I probably would have pulled out his tongue. And I know your wife probably wants to interrogate him, so that would have been quite the unfortunate predicament.” 

Gamzee swung a club over his shoulder, and snorted. “Naw, I still could crack the motherfucker open like an egg’s shell for breakfast with my chucklevoodoos, ‘cept—”

“Except using chucklevoodoos is illegal, you dumpass,” Terezi interrupted him.

“So is kidnapping and arresting a man without being a legitimate member of the law,” Gamzee replied smoothly, glowering down at the shorter troll, “but that don’t stop us from doing the job that’s all motherfuckin’ assigned to us.”

Puffing up, Terezi met him glare for glare. “Some laws are morally questionable, and by that logic have to be regretfully overlooked for the pursuit of justice. It is not something that I take any joy in, but I am willing to make the sacrifice for the greater good. Whereas something menial such as your ability to use ethically ambiguous privileged abilities—”

“Mother fuckin’ menial, bitch? What if you couldn’t be using your bitchtits wings, for fuck’s sa—”

“Guys, stop.” Rose sighed loudly from her place leaning against the front desk, waving an arm lazily. “I’m not in the mood for your flirtations, as flattering as they might be.”

Footsteps could be heard coming down the hall, and everyone in the room besides the prisoner straightened reflexively, the room going quiet aside from the clicking at the keyboard as Patricia went back to her own work.

“Lalonde, Makara, and Pyrope.” Mrs. Whitney turned the corner and entered the lobby, her easy gait as regal and effortless as the rest of her. “And Dr. Houston, I presume.”

Rose, Terezi and Gamzee swiftly formed a line, standing behind the doctor as though showing off their prized catch to their superior. Terezi nudged the doctor forward harshly, sending him stumbling down to his knees. “That’s right,” Rose said, “Ready to interrogate, just as you requested.”

Mrs. Whitney nodded, her sharp features softening a fraction to give them a smile. “Thank you. Makara and Pyrope, you know where to take him.”

“Absolutely, ma’am,” Gamzee replied, kicking at the doctor’s heel until he got back up, “Right a motherfuck way.” With Terezi’s help, they walked Houston down the way Mrs. Whitney came in, with Mrs. Whitney herself in tow.

“I’ll return them to you in a moment, Lalonde,” she said just before disappearing.

Rose went back to leaning against the counter, glancing back over her shoulder so that she could watch Patricia as she shuffled around a stack of papers and went back to work. As intent she was to do her job, however, Patricia could clearly feel Rose’s gaze, for she asked, “Yes, dearie?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Rose began, raising an eyebrow, fishing for a reaction.

“Rosie, don’t think less of me for saying so, but I wouldn’t believe that there is a single second of your life you haven’t spent thinking,” Patricia returned smoothly, a youthful giggle laced into her words, “In fact, it is my own opinion that you could probably use a break from your own thoughts once in a while. Overthinking is poisonous to your health, you know. Gives you all sorts of wrinkles, all over your face.” She pulled at her own cheeks for emphasis.

Rose scoffed at her playfulness, shaking her head. “I meant, I’ve been thinking of something specific that I wished to discuss with you.” She turned to her side, again waiting for a response.

“Could this perhaps be something we’ve discussed before?” Patricia guessed.

“Perhaps. However, if I had a new angle to work with, I see no harm in revisiting it,” Rose said, waiting for Patricia to sigh and put the papers to the side before she continued. She bit her lip, as though about to reconsider, before getting the nerve to plunge on forward. “It’s about rooming arrangements. It just makes no sense for an organization that stands for species equality to separate the dorms between humans and trolls. And yes, before you correct me, I know the potential hazards of night terrors and sleep rage. However, being that I share a quadrant with Gamzee and Terezi, they would be able to recognize me by my scent and would not harm me. Nor would the other trolls, even were they to somehow sleepwalk into our room, for my ashenmates would be there to protect me. Therefore, there is little to no risk of me sleeping in the troll dorms, and certainly no more risk than I am in sleeping in my own room all by myself. Less so, actually.”

Taking in a patient breath, Patricia never stopped smiling and shook her head at Rose. “That isn’t any more fair, though, Rosie. To make an exception for one person… that’s not fair at all, is it?”

“What is less fair?” Rose counted quickly, as though having anticipated this rebuttal, “Defying the traditions of trollkind, which would never accept allowing two trolls to bed down together without their mutual auspistice, or making an exception for something that no rational person, upon understanding the risks of rooming with a troll outside their quadrant, would envy? It’s absolutely preposterous, bordering on the hypocritical, for us to call ourselves the trolls’s equals and yet ignore one of the most common protocols of their social guidelines. Honestly, it’s near a safety hazard to keep Gamzee and Terezi locked up together without anyone to mediate their interactions.”

Though Rose paused to collect her thoughts, Patricia made no mistake in assuming that Rose was done. Konnor, however, listening from the corner, shuffled his chair closer. “You shouldn’t assume that everyone is as sane as you, Rose,” he chuckled, “There will still be plenty of jealousy.”

“Then why not make the exception into a rule?” Rose turned around, focusing her attention on him. She moved to the center of the room, pacing as she thought up and spoke aloud her points, moving from speaking to Konnor to speaking to Patricia. “A human may only sleep in the troll’s dorm when it is necessary. And it shall only be necessary when the human shares a conciliatory quadrant with the troll or two, and when it has been determined that the human’s presence is necessary for the purpose of pacifying his or her partner or partners. After all, I do believe Mary and Redres have been exploring the pale quadrant, and God knows that conciliation can only benefit Redres.”

Patricia, by this time, was just chuckling under her breath, propping her bosom up onto her folded arms. “Rosie, you know very well that if it was in my power, I would have no problem with you moving into their room. Seeing that I don’t make the rules, however…” She gave a graceful and deeply sympathetic shrug. “You’ll have to talk to Mrs. Whitney.”

Always the same answer. Rose slumped in defeat, falling back against the wall. “You say that as though I haven’t tried time and time again.” She ran her hands through her hair and changed the subject abruptly. “I need to take a shower. Talk to you later, Patricia, Konnor.”

They wished her luck and a good day, and grinned after her. Their gazes met and they shared a chuckle that clearly said, “Ahh, young love.”

\--

Later, when Gamzee and Terezi returned to their shared block, they were briefly caught off guard by the blonde head bobbing in the sopor slime of their double recoupercoon. Then she turned around, blinking half-lidded eyes at them, and pulled out a bare arm to beckon them over.

“C’mon,” she cooed to them, her voice satiny, softened by the pull of recent sleep, “Let’s take a nap before dinnertime. There’s no rule preventing me from being in your dorm during the sunlight hours.”

They laughed heartily at her, and Terezi bounced over, quick to accept the invitation. “Jumping through the loopholes, as usual. That’s my girl.” She nuzzled her face against Rose’s, raking claws through her still damp hair, which was starting to clot up with the slime. “You’re going to have to take another bath after we’re done, though.”

“Fine with me,” Rose waved it off lazily, nipping the side of Terezi’s lip before the troll pulled back to undress.

Gamzee followed suit, dropping his polka dot sweats around his ankles and kicking them aside before working on his shirt. “Gonna be a tight squeeze, all three of us mushed up together in our ash slime soup. Plus Teresita is mostly points, like a triangle with all sharp ends.” He managed to dodge Terezi before she cool prove his point by stabbing him in the gut with an elbow. “Not mother fuckin’ cool, sister. It’s down time; get your groove on with the bitchtits sleepytime miracles.”

“Both of you, shut up and get in here with me,” Rose demanded with a playful giggle, the influence of the sopor clouding her head as she clung to the edge of the ‘coon.

Now bare except for her boxers, Terezi obeyed, leaping up and wiggling down into a space beside Rose. “It’s a good thing Rose is squishy enough to balance out the both of us,” she commented, finding a way to curl herself against her auspistice’s curves, wings folded tight against her back.

Rose had a good laugh at that. “Oh well thank you, Terezi.”

“Motherfuckin’ seagoat coming through,” Gamzee announced, down to his own boxers, and hoisted himself up. It took him some time to sink his satyr legs into the pool of slime without kicking someone with his hooves, but at last he stretched the recoupercoon enough so that he could fit snugly beside the two women. He rested his chin on Rose’s shoulder and almost immediately broke into a throaty rumble.

There was some last minute pushing and shoving, which Rose was unfortunately in the middle of, but she gave them both a few paps and delivered a barely audible, “Shoosh,” and they were out like lights.

\--

Houston sat, chained back against the chair by his wrists and torso, head rolled back as he gazed restlessly up at the ceiling. He was calming down from his encounter with Mrs. Whitney, and wondered if he still had a chance of escape before his execution.

With nothing else to capture his attention, his curiosity was immediately piqued as the doorknob began to turn, and the door creaked open just wide enough for Rose to slip in.

“Doctor,” she began, pulling a clear orb from out of her robes, “We meet again.”

Houston watched and studied her every motion, wondering if his end was just around the corner, or if this was merely another distraction meant to prolong his misery.

Rose pulled forward the stool Mrs. Whitney had sat at before, placing it right in Houston’s line of sight, and reverently placed the orb onto it. “Inside this crystal ball,” Rose continued, not waiting for any response from their prisoner, “is an assortment of my childhood memories, brought to life by a few advanced charms. The planet’s name is Dwellurn. The story isn’t really complete yet, but I think you’ll be able to make sense of the pieces of the puzzle that I have already put together.”

Confused but still intrigued, Houston leaned forward. 

He watched as she stroked the surface, summoning images from deep within its core to play out across its face. Houston couldn’t help but squint, trying to make sense of the figures dancing within the spiraling smoke.

Rose stepped back, watching Houston carefully, waiting for her spell to enchant him. It didn’t take long before his breathing went deep, and his jaw slackened.

“Enjoy the tale,” Rose said before exiting.


	2. Dig Two Graves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn't obvious by now, most of the other characters are based off of the carapaces. This will continued to be the same for the rest of the story, with the exception of minor characters such as Houston. WQ: Quenby Whitney, PM: Marian Pallas, MP: Patricia Mauve, WK: Konnor Whitney, AR: Redres Airene, Jack: Sabern Siamak, DD: Delind Drakon
> 
> I turned their initials into the Last Name, First Name format so that the White King and the White Queen could share the same surname

Lessons were at nine in the morning, meaning that Rose and her friends had to be awoken early to get groomed and eat breakfast. She was still half-asleep when her two ashenmates snuck into her room, creeping across the floor before leaping onto her bed.

Rose let out a rather undignified shriek as she turned over, swatting whoever was closer, which turned out to be Terezi’s face. “Guys,” she laughed, trying and failing to sound stern.

“We’re your wakeup call today,” Gamzee explained as Terezi rubbed her assaulted nose, wrestling Rose out of her sheets, “So get your plump ass all woken the mother fuck up, because the three of us got a whole buffet clogging up our plates today.” He gave her butt a pinch for emphasis, which earned him a rather harsh pap across the forehead, but he merely laughed it off.

Rose rolled over, attempting to ignore them. She caught a glance at her clock, wondering why her alarm hadn’t gone off, and gave a deep groan that lasted for quite a while. Once out of breath, she turned to glare at them with slightly less sleepy eyes. “Gamzee, Terezi, it’s six o’ clock.”

The troll trolls grinned at one another, and then back at her. “So it is,” Terezi agreed, “Gamzee, it appears that Rose knows how to tell time. Give her an award.”

Before Rose can swat her again, Gamzee wraps Rose’s arms up in the sheets and gives a nip to the wrinkle forming between her brows. “Don’t be pointing that salty attitude towards these here innocent as fuck motherfuckers, we’re just the messengers here.” When she stopped struggling and gave him a quizzical look, he released her from her fabric prison and explained, “Mrs. Whitney is calling for everyone coming to the lesson today to be getting our asses all up in line by seven.”

That was a bit unusual, and Gamzee and Terezi’s jovial attitudes did little to ease the sudden knot of tension in Rose’s stomach. They were, after all, carefree about most things. 

Pushing them out of the way, picking through piles of clothes on the floor to find an outfit that she could wear, Rose thought over the possibilities of such a request from their superior. When her own imagination turned grim, she turned to her trolls, who were wrestling on her bed, Terezi using Rose’s blankets to form a makeshift noose around Gamzee’s neck. Clearing her throat to grab their attention, Rose asked, “Did she elaborate on the change in schedule?”

“I don’t think so,” Terezi replied, pulling the noose tighter, having Gamzee push his hand at her chest.

“Terezi, be careful,” Rose scolded, making it clear in her voice that she was wagging her finger disapprovingly. She watched with satisfaction as Terezi released Gamzee, patting his back as the large highblood bent over, sucking air back into his lungs loudly. “Gamzee, what about you? Did you even ask her why she wants us up so early?”

Nursing his throat with a couple of gentle fingers, Gamzee’s narrowed gaze released Terezi after a pause and focused over to Rose. “Sure, we got all on that questioning business, but she said there wasn’t any time for a motherfuckin’ q and a. She seemed a couple shades of stressed, actually.”

Rose’s stomach did a quick flip and she swallowed to keep the panic from showing in her voice. “Oh, is that so? Well, let’s get ready, then.”

“Don’t worry,” Terezi assured her, “Just think of it as an adventure.”

Lo and behold, that did little to get Rose to relax, but she took it in stride, rolling Terezi’s suggestion over in her head. “Maybe I should meditate before we go,” she finally decided.

\--

The dining room was abuzz with chitchat as Rose, Gamzee and Terezi enter, the various groups huddled around their trays of breakfast food going quiet for a split second, before exploding with inquiries pointed at Rose.

Mary, a tall plain young woman in the corner eating her meal beside a squat avian troll, got up from her seat, brushing off the back of her skirt, and walked over to Rose. Her troll companion took another large bite of sausage, wiped his mouth with a grunt, and got up to follow. They greet Rose with a couple of nods, before Mary asked, “Did you see anything, Rose?”

Again the room went silent, nearly eerily so. Rose could see that she hadn’t been the only person upset by Mrs. Whitney’s early wakeup call. 

Even with a roomful of eyes spotlighting her, Rose remained composed, giving Mary one of the smiles of mischief she was known for. “I did see something indeed, my friend. Everyone, gather around. I have quite the tale to enlighten you all with. However, I won’t spill a single word until I get some substance into my body.” 

There were some sounds of disappointment, but Rose walked past them and up to the counter, taking a tray for herself. Gamzee and Terezi followed after, and they went down the line, picking food from the array that was provided. Ms. Mauve spooned the syrup over their pancakes, and wished them a good morning, shushing anyone who attempted to get Rose to talk earlier than she planned to with a wave of her sticky ladle. 

Once at the corner table with Mary and Redres, the buzz filling up the room was deafening, and Rose laughed, taking a few bites before lifting a finger to indicate she wanted to speak.

“Tell us,” Mary encouraged Rose, “tell us what you saw in your visions.”

Rose snorted, basking in the eyes trained on her as she worded her sentences in her head. “Believe it or not,” she spoke loud enough for everyone to hear her with ease, “we are planning on having a very special visitor today. Senator Scratch himself, in the flesh, will be making an appearance at our mid-morning troll sociology presentation.” 

“Senator Scratch?” That was the troll sociology professor, Sabern Siamak, who gnashed his canines over the name. “What’s that lousy S.O.B. doing up in our part of town? He’d be lucky if I didn’t stab him before he even crossed the threshold into our territory.”

Terezi leaned behind Rose to nudge Gamzee, whispering, “Isn’t being stabbed by Siamak the rite to passage around here though?”

The clown giggled in response, and Rose shooshed them under her breath.

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Patricia pointed out, unpinning her bun where it had been pulled tight against the back of her head and smiling affectionately up at him despite his slobbery grimace. Hands to her thighs, she quipped cutely, “I get the feeling that Rosie isn’t quite done yet.”

“To be honest,” Rose said, “I’m not quite sure why he’s coming, but I didn’t see him causing any trouble. Just… being present.”

Sabern barked out a laugh. “For him, that’s more than enough.” 

Beside him, Professor Delind Drakon breathed a sigh into his mug of joe and gave a firm pap to Sabern’s back. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Sabern. Guy like that ain’t worth your time. Remember what we got working on about productive versus destructive stress.”

A few people got a good laugh out of that, causing Sabern to turn on his reptilian friend. Delind requested that he “heel”, which only worsened the situation.

“Oh, Mr. Drakon,” Patricia cooed, “Don’t be like that,” which didn’t help much either.

Rose almost laughed at the chaos she created, but it was no more than she expected. It wasn’t every day that the man who nearly shut down their institution decided to pay them a visit. She elbowed Gamzee, who was trying to sneak a strip of bacon off of Terezi’s plate before she noticed. Ah, but an auspistice’s job was never finished.

A knock came at the door a little after everyone was done their meal and had resigned themselves to sitting back and chatting excitedly about the day ahead.

Mr. Whitney poked his head through, waving a stack of papers in his hand. “These are from the missus,” he declared, which just about silenced the room. He made his way to the center of everyone, waiting patiently until everyone was seated and paying him their complete attention.

“I’m sure everyone is aware of the news by now,” he began, “either through the grapevines or by a little bird, and by bird, of course I mean our own Lalonde.” Mr. Whitney offered a wink that moved with his whole head in Rose’s direction, which she returned to everyone’s amusement. “However, I might as well make it official and let everyone know that Senator Scratch is, in fact, on our guest list for this morning. Because of this, Quenby has composed a cheat sheet, if you will. Here are some problematic questions that he may ask, and the appropriate responses.”

As he spoke, he began to shuffle his somewhat impressive girth around in a most graceful manner, handing out the paper with a supportive smile. “Remember, everyone, we are a non-profit institution seeking peace and understanding between humans and trolls.”

“Is this why we were given a wakeup call in the ungodly morning hours?” Redres grumped, more to himself than to anyone else.

Mr. Whitney overheard his complaints, and nodded sympathetically. “These procedures are nothing new to you, of course, but even so. If Senator Scratch finds a single blemish in our presentation, I doubt he will hesitate in ordering an inspection of the building. And seeing as we are currently harboring one of Fowler’s employed as of late, I do believe we would all be found and tried as conspirators against the government. So as annoying as it is to be up before the sun, Mrs. Whitney – as well as I – don’t want anyone to take risks that may condemn us all to a traitor’s death.”

\--

“Welcome, everyone, to the Q. Whitney Institute of Xenology. As you can clearly see, I am a troll, and if that unnerves anyone, well, you shouldn’t have come, ain’t that right?” Professor Siamak adjusted his tie and grinned over his audience, mostly young adults, lined up at each table, notebooks open and awaiting information to store. Behind them, at the back of the classroom, a few older humans stood, almost identical distrusting expressions on their faces. However, there was one man, his shiny bald albino head standing out among the crowd, wearing a look of utter complacency.

Siamak swept his gaze over all his new students, but avoided Senator Scratch’s gaze with no little amount of unease. Behind him, Delind stood, quiet and with arms folded over his chest. “Here to assist me in today’s lesson, I have some senior scholars who live and study here at the school. As you can see,” he added, motioning to the students lined up by the chalkboard, “we have a healthy mix of the races. Scholars, please step forward when I call your name.”

Rose took a deep breath, eyes never leaving Scratch’s face. No matter what her vision had told her, that he would remain unobtrusive the entire lesson, she wouldn’t put it past the Senator to change the future on a whim. After all, although her visions were always accurate, they were only accurate to the point in which she had them, and at any point one person could shift the timeline onto a different branch, rendering her vision obsolete. Though rare, it did happen once in a blue moon. 

Unfolding the attendance list, Siamak cleared his throat with a commanding cough. “Ahem. Airene, Redres.” He paused, waiting for the troll to step forward and give a short nod to their audience. “Very good. Cathings, Cassius.” The next boy mimicked Redres’s motions.

Senator Scratch was strangely still, no sign of disgust or fear whenever Siamak spoke or one of the troll students moved, unlike the others in the room. Whether this was due to his confidence in his own strength, or something else altogether, Rose couldn’t be sure. He was a powerful magi, sure, but to leave himself so open to what he perceived as soulless demons… no, there had to be something else going on. In all her interactions with Scratch, Rose knew one thing very clearly: Overly self-assured, yes, there was no doubt that he was that, but more than that, he was intelligent.

“De Luca, Alice.” Professor Siamak’s voice drifted in the background of Rose’s consciousness, and out of the corner of her eye, her classmate stepped forward to give a curtsey. 

Though Rose was blessed with the ability to see into the future, it didn’t allow her the privilege of understanding all that she saw. No, she had to rely on her own knowledge for that. What she knew of Scratch, however, was hardly sufficient to provide her with an answer. That he despised trolls, that she considered to be a fact, and his goal had once been to shut down their institute. Was it possible he was willing to open his mind to the truth that trollkind was, in fact, different, but still just as capable of “humanity” as humankind was? No, no, that was insane—

A loud grunt broke her train of thought. Rose glanced over to Siamak, who was thrashing his tail in all-too apparent impatience. “I said,” he repeated, “Lalonde, Rose.”

There was a snort from the back of the room, and with burning cheeks Rose shamefully realized it had come from Senator Scratch himself. His eyes were upon her, leering with a spark that was frighteningly similar to greed. What he lusted for, her humiliation, or something more, Rose had no desire to know. She stepped forward, keeping her head high despite the pounding of her heart against her ribcage, and curtsied, refusing to look at any one person in particular. 

Gamzee’s hand was on her shoulder as soon as she stepped back, and just like that, the moment was over, though the image of the Senator’s sparkling eyes lingered. Gamzee’s clawed thumb rubbed in a tender circle, but he pulled away quickly, knowing he would be next to be called.

“Makara, Gamzee.”

Rose kept her face an icy mask through the rest of the roll call, refusing to make her mistake into a bigger issue than it had been. She attempted to glance at Scratch, and found that his gaze had swept to Gamzee. To Rose’s disbelief and dismay, she could swear that the lines of his face had softened into something barely reminiscent of… affection. But, she must have been mistaken. Surely there are other emotions that could pass for it. Perhaps it was merely indigestion. 

“Pallas, Marian.”

Mary took her turn, bowing humbling at her waist.

“And last, Pyrope, Terezi.”

Terezi opened her arms, giving a sweeping bow to the audience. “Last,” she spoke, “but certainly not least,” to which she got a few soft – and a few forced – laughs scattered across the room.

Cliché, perhaps, but Rose had to give her points for attempting to break the ice. She had to take Terezi’s hand to tug her back before the sudden fame got to the troll’s head, though, lest she steal Siamak’s spotlight like she was known to. 

“Yes, wonderful,” Professor Siamak huffed, scooping up the textbook and flipping through the pages expertly with his large paws. If that didn’t impress and/or win over anyone in the room, Rose would eat her headdress. She couldn’t imagine growing up into a body that was unusual and alien, constantly changing with each year, morphing into something new. Sometimes it was noticing the little things that made the most difference.

Once he found his page, the guests posed with their pencils and pens, Siamak took on a tone not wholly separate from his casual gruff tone, but one that clearly signaled business. “Today, as you all should know, is troll sociology, and more specifically, going over the two most significant social systems in troll society: the quadrant system, and the hemosystem. The latter is outdated, and often taught with far too many fabrications, but we’ll get to that part later, probably after lunch. If anyone realizes that they’re in the wrong lesson, leave as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, and try not to let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

None of the students seemed ready to go anywhere, and for that Rose was glad. The more people they could educate, the better off everyone would be. A few students even appeared to be fond of Siamak already, if their noiseless chuckles were anything to go by.

“First, the less complicated of the two systems, the quadrants.” Professor Siamak smacked the back of his hand against the chalkboard. “Redres, mind drawing a visual for our knowledge-hungry students?”

The square split into four smaller squares was familiar enough to Rose for her to even make the effort to glance over at it. She already knew the quadrants like the back of her hand, having grown up among trolls, and experimented with their romance herself. Their school, for convenient reference, always put the symbols in the same quadrants, going clockwise with the top left square: heart, diamond, spade, and clubs.

“Four quadrants, four separate romantic relationships, unlike humans, who have a singular, linear concept of romance,” Professor Siamak began, glancing at his book only fleetingly, this lesson one he had memorized years before, “Trolls view romance as serving a much more essential social purpose than humans, who see romance more as an idealized prospect, but certainly not one that is necessary for serving as a citizen of their race. No, trolls have a specific and strictly defined purpose for each of the romances, and are required to maintain one of each of the four by adulthood. No more, and no less.”

He took out his trusty ruler, which had to be taped back together many times during his career for the amount of times it had seen the back of a slumbering scholar’s head. Rose couldn’t help but bite back a smile at seeing it, and knew by Gamzee’s muffled snickering that he felt the same.

“Three of the four quadants,” the lesson continued, “can be described as being flavors of romance. Human romance is often a combination of all the flavors, and some relationships may lean towards a flavor defined by the quadrant system. Therefore, it should be very easy for all of you to recognize these traits in your own relationships. Remember, however, that though the emotions felt during these relationships may overlap with emotions you feel in your own human romances, the purpose of each troll relationship is specific to their individual social function. The three flavors that you will recognize are also known as flushed, pale, and caliginous.

“The heart is flushed, such as the way your face with flush with embarrassment with blood from your heart. This relationship is called matespritship, and its social function is reproduction. The flavor of flushed love can be described as passionate. It gets your heart racing, your blood pumping. 

“The diamond is pale, such as the way such a gemstone would be lacking in color, pristine and pure upon the jewel’s many sculpted facets. This relationship is called moirallegiance, and its social function is in pacification.” Here, Siamak turned to Delind, who had been so silent the whole time that Rose had nearly forgotten he was there. “Professor Drakon is my moirail, here just in case I feel like stabbing anyone.” There was some heavy silence, and Siamak rolled his eyes. “That was a joke.”

Rose forced herself to laugh, to try to lighten up the sudden tense atmosphere.

“The flavor of pale romance can be described as intimate. And no, not physically intimate, get your minds out of the gutter. I’m talking about a person who keeps your secrets for you, who knows every mask you wear, and who could talk you into or out of anything, who you trust to use their powers only for your benefit. It’s trust incarnate, to the point where moirails are often likened to your human concept of soulmates.” Professor Siamak spoke dispassionately, monotone, but there was the slightest hint of cerulean in his cheeks, as if he knew that behind him, Delind was mocking a swoon.

“The spade,” Sabern charged on with the lesson swiftly, his voice rising harshly to frighten any smirking students back into taking down notes, “is caliginous, or dark and gloomy, like the spade you use to dig the graves of your enemies. This relationship is called kismesissitude, and its social function has two parts: reproduction, as well as satiation of another bodily urge. Reproduction for trolls requires two sexual partners instead of one, hence the two quadrants required for it. The second function is give trolls a safe way to take out their natural aggression. The older a troll becomes, the stronger the need is to act on their violent impulses. However, like sexual impulses, contrary to popular belief, can be controlled with hardly any effort. Humans too have natural aggression, but acting on them in any context is considered immoral. This is a cultural difference, and not a biological one.”

This was important, and he went silent, waiting for that to sink in. “If any of you have ever had the urge to hit someone when you have lost your temper, you have felt the same natural aggressive impulses that plague us all, troll or human. There is no difference. If you disagree, talk to me after class, and I will show you the results of numerous studies our institute have done on the very subject. For now, just assume that I know what I’m talking about.”

Rose looked to Senator Scratch, as did some of her friends, but again his demeanor was as content and his expression as smug as it had been for the majority of the lesson.

“Now, the final of the four relationships, which completes the set. Obviously, even a race that relies on a polygamous system has its problems with it. Especially in youth, as trolls are trying to sort out their various flavors of crushes and romantic entanglements, there are bound to be hard feelings. These hard feelings can often develop into unhealthy relationships. In order to stabilize the social and romantic circle of both trolls, a third party will often intervene in their relationship, taking the role as a mediator and conciliator. The three will be in the ashen flavor of romance, called auspisticism, symbolized by the clubs. It can often be a difficult relationship for trolls to understand, let alone humans. Luckily, we have such a trio here who can help with the explanation, I do believe.” 

Having expected this, having done this numerous times in the past, Rose took Gamzee’s hand in her left and Terezi’s in her right, and stepped forward with them. “That’s quite true,” Rose began, keeping her trolls linked to her as she recited lines she knew by heart, “I have been auspisticing Gamzee and Terezi for six years now. We’ll be having our seventh anniversary in the fall.” 

“Excellent,” Professor Siamak said impassively, “What would you say being in an ashen relationship is like, and would you liken it to a romantic relationship?”

“I’m not going to lie,” Rose answered, trying to put at least a little emotion into her voice to keep the students interested, “it can be very difficult. Building a new relationship off of a broken one is never easy, but it’s wonderful to get the chance to start over. We have our up moments, and our down moments.” She raked her mind, trying to find a way to spice up her otherwise rehearsed lines. “Just last week, I was having a bad day, a pounding headache, and Gamzee and Terezi got into a fight over what channel they were going to watch. I lost my temper, and it was a close call, because I almost thought I wasn’t going to step in and mediate for a moment. However, I have a responsibility to the relationship that I committed to, so I did. The evening ended in a lovely temple massage.” Rose could feel Terezi and Gamzee squeeze at her palms on either side in encouragement and affection.

It left a rush of sweet satisfaction in Rose’s chest, and she felt no reservations in stating, “And as for it being romantic, I have no doubts about that. My love for my ashenmates is certainly that of a romantic nature. After all, if we did not love one another, what else would keep us together even in the times in which we want nothing more than to bash each other’s’ heads in? It’s tough, it can get downright frustrating at times, it’s something we definitely have to work at day in and day out, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t worth it in the end.”

Terezi chirped a high-pitched sound in her throat in what Rose assumed to be agreement, as she nosed her face into Rose’s neck. “She keeps us sane,” Terezi admitted softly, almost so low that Rose wondered if anyone but her had heard it. But maybe that was sort of the point.

Not to be outdone, Gamzee wrapped his spindly arms around the both of them, hugging them to his chest. “Rose is our motherfuckin’ stone, y’know?” His declaration no doubt was heard by everyone, and maybe even by some out in the hall, and he ended it with a playful tug on the tip of Rose’s ear that had her face reddening for the second time that day, damn him. She would be sure to get him back for that afterwards.

“Mrs. Whiney, can I help you?”

Rose pushed her trolls away, turning around and seeing their superior standing in the doorway. Immediately Rose suspected the worst, but there was an easy smile on Mrs. Whitney’s face.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she spoke, waving to the room, “I’m Mrs. Whitney, the principal around here. I just wanted to see Makara and Pyrope outside for a moment. That won’t mess with your lesson plans, will it, Professor Siamak?”

Sabern shook his head negative, giving a shrug. “Gamzee, Terezi, you’re dismissed. Don’t disrupt the class when you come back.”

Trying to trust Mrs. Whitney and not get too nervous, Rose gave Gamzee a nip on his bottom lip, face in her hands, and then did the same for Terezi. They each smiled at her and papped her cheek, obviously guessing her inner stress. “We’ll be back in no more than two shakes,” Gamzee promised, mouthing the words, and then giving a second, softer pap, before taking Terezi’s hand.

Rose waved them off, tempted and then resisting the urge to peek into their future. It was probably nothing.

\--

“You’re going to want to see this,” was the first thing Mrs. Whitney said. She lead the two trolls down the hall at a swift pace, heels somehow managing to make more noise than Gamzee’s trotting hooves or Terezi’s clicking talons. 

Gamzee and Terezi continued to keep their hands linked, beginning to get sinking feelings in their digestive sacs. They exchanged questioning glances. Were they in trouble? Although neither could recall having done anything that would have Mrs. Whitney herself pulling them aside for a talking-to, both were well known for their lack of adhering to rules, a habit which left them a tad paranoid.

Mrs. Whitney turned them down the hall which led to the prisoners’ cells, and the trolls let out dual sighs of relief. It must have had something to do with Houston. Of course. But what?

Once they got to Houston’s door, Mrs. Whitney at last turned to look from Gamzee’s face to Terezi’s. “I want you to tell me if what I’m about to show you is in any way familiar to you.” The thin press of her lips was enough to have them begin to worry once more. Something clearly wasn’t right. “Please, step inside. I do have to warn you, though… it isn’t pretty.”

Gamzee gave Terezi a skeptical look. What wasn’t pretty? Something gory perhaps? That was not anything they weren’t used to. 

Terezi, on the other hand, lowered her gaze, her burnt eyes appearing haunted. When at last she met her ashenmate’s stare, she gave a gentle nod. She knew exactly what they were dealing with. And it wasn’t going to be pretty at all.

The door was opened for them, and at once Gamzee gagged, turning his face to hide in Terezi’s hair.

A stench of ash and burning flesh wafted over them, the smoke burning their eyes to the point of tears. The sound of screams filled the air, and Mrs. Whitney was quick to push them inside, followed them in and closed the door behind them, trapping them within the chaos. 

The room was a tornado of tragedy, the force of a scared little girl’s suppressed memories lashing out in every direction out from its source. Phantom images of long-dead villagers rushed past the trolls, hysterically seeking a haven that didn’t exist. Landmarks and buildings Gamzee and Terezi hadn’t seen in years appeared and disappeared in rapid succession before them, even to Terezi’s dead vision, falling to ruin under explosions that roared with such volume that Gamzee and Terezi had to pull their hands away from each other to cover their ears.

“Make it stop,” Gamzee begged, trying to retreat from the destruction and finding himself backed against the door, purple liquid staining his facepaint, “make it stop make it stop make it stop make it MOTHER FUCKIN STOP!”

Mrs. Whitney reached out to comfort him, but Terezi stopped her with a gentle talon to her wrist, shaking her head “no”.

The dragonoid troll, after ensuring that Mrs. Whitney would keep from touching Gamzee, stepped forward into the funnel of magic and placed her hand upon the orb, almost scaldingly hot to the touch. “ _Etscena_ ,” Terezi commanded, and at once, with a gentle whistling sound, it was all gone.

The room was as it was, Houston cowering at his seat, the orb sitting unobtrusive and guiltless at its stool where Rose had placed it earlier. 

The echoes of the dead, however, rang insistently in their ears.

Gamzee clawed at his, drawing blood as he pulled at the skin of his lobes and hooked his nails inside, as though trying to dig the persistent earworm out. “Stop, stop,” he pleaded in a hollow tone, his facepaint ruined by shallow streams of purple.

Not bothering with gentleness, Terezi strode over to him and slapped him across the cheek, and then the other, methodical strikes that betrayed no caliginous feelings behind them. Once she had him with his hands held up to keep her from striking again, she caught his chin in her talons, forced him to stare into her glassy crimson eyes. “Breathe, clown. Close your eyes. Remember your meditations,” she whispered, knowing the moment was far too intimate for Mrs. Whitney to overhear, though the woman was already turned away for privacy’s sake.

Gamzee tried to wiggle from her grip, breaths coming fast, but when she refused to let him go, he relented, listening to her repeated, “Your meditations, Gamzee! Now!”

Seeing that he was now the center of attention, even by their prisoner, Gamzee grinded his fangs together and forced his breathing to slow. Terezi wouldn’t let him go, even as he pawed at her, so he chose to ignore her and focus on his mantra. It was always the same word, the same name, and it always brought the peace he found slipping from him in times of turmoil. He rolled it over in his mind with each exhale, and inhaled a mouthful of air each time afterwards. When Gamzee finally mouthed it with his lips, a silent “ _Karkat_ ,” and a gentle twist appeared in his lips, enough for one of his signature dimples to become visible, Terezi knew he was going to be okay.

“What was that?”

It was the first thing Houston had said since they had entered his prison, and he stole glances between the two trolls, though his fear of them wasn’t anywhere near as strong as Terezi had been hoping for. It was, however, what she had expected.

“None of your business,” Terezi was quick to reply, spreading her wings to put up a barrier between Houston and Gamzee as the latter pulled himself together again. “Now, I have a few questions for you about what you’ve just experienced. And before your think pan rushes ahead of itself trying to devise the perfect false story, let it be known that I can smell lies, and I will—”

“Please… just kill me.”

Mrs. Whitney gave a questioning glance to Terezi, but the troll merely shrugged her shoulders and gave a weary sigh. “You were begging for your life the other day,” Quenby said, “Did witnessing the death of a few thousand young trolls really change your mind? Surely you understand that that’s what you’ve been doing this entire time with your experiments.”

“It’s not that.” Houston looked from one to the other, his look that of a man who has already resigned himself to death, “That… that spell, that witchcraft. It did more than merely show me what the witch had been through. I experienced all of it. I have danced in the meadows of Dwellurn and mourned the death of her mother. I have loved the land and I have loved its people, but none of that is why I wish to die.

“I wish to die because I am caught in a dilemma with no pleasing outcome,” Houston explained, “If that witch’s memories are real, if she did not temper with them, then I am a murderer, one that doesn’t deserve life, and who can no longer live with his crimes. But if they are not, and the witch has cursed me, then she has done so brilliantly, for I am terribly in love with…” The words appeared painful for him to even contemplate saying, but at last he was able to spit out, “with a _troll_. That filthy, accursed, soulless, tantalizing, _fantastic_ demon maiden the witch had fallen for. Upon looking into the orb, I fell in love with her as well. The second explanation is that I am cursed to be in love with a monster, and in this case I would rather die as well.”

At that, Mrs. Whitney snorted, a short humorless thing that followed with a disbelieving shake of her head. “Is that so? One orb has done that much to you?” She had the floor now, and as much as they wanted to speak, Terezi and Gamzee kept their maws clenched tight. “In that case, would you be interested in redeeming yourself? Surely that would be more noble than dying.”

“You don’t understand,” Houston bit back, eyes turning watery as he confessed, “I have constructed a dozen or more brilliant murder devices, and with them have murdered thousands of trolls. I could have killed _her_ , could have taken the life of my own dear, graceful Kana—”

Talons were at his jugular in an instant, Terezi growling into his ear even as Gamzee stood tensed behind her, having been ready to bash Houston’s head in, and would have done so if Terezi hadn’t gotten to the doctor first. Terezi lowered her voice to a near whisper, her voice trembling embarrassingly even as she fought to keep her own eyes dry. “You don’t have the right to say her name.”

“Makara, Pyrope, step back please.” Mrs. Whitney’s own tone had turned frighteningly chilly, and she gave them pointed, business-like stares until they backed off.

Houston didn’t move, seeming apathetic to the claw marks in his throat. He turned his gaze back to Mrs. Whitney, and with great effort, forced his shoulders into a shrug. “I don’t deserve to say her name,” he agreed, “and I certainly don’t deserve life. Not as a murderer, and not as a love slave to a monster. Even if she is a monster, and even if, in a strange twist of events, she is not. If trolls are capable of humanity—if humanity itself is a misleading, or worse, a problematic, biased word. The witch, Rose, I have seen inside her mind, I have been her. She would want me to die.”

“Or she might want you to redeem yourself,” Mrs. Whitney argued passionately, visibly running out of patience, “If what I’ve gathered about this orb is correct, you only saw the memories of a frightened child. Lalonde has matured since. People change. And so can you.”

There was a drag of heavy silence, Houston watching Mrs. Whitney but not saying a word, not in defense, nor in agreement. 

Gamzee had been watching Mrs. Whitney, thinking over her words, and he took a step forward. Terezi went to put her arm in front of him, but he squeezed her shoulder gingerly and gave the tip of her pointed ear a tugging nip, and she allowed him past her. Walking up to the doctor, he gnawed at his lip, his breath still coming a bit uneven and fast. And then, once he felt confident about his words, he began to speak. “I don’t got my know on which memories you were witness to and which ones you ain’t been, but if your oculars got their look on to what younger me had done, then you’d know just how much a motherfucker can change. And I know it’s apples and oranges, can’t compare manslaughter to genocide, but if Rose can be all down for loving a good-for-nothing clown, hell, setting up a miracle quadrant with him like the most mirthful colorful tent out in the open for all to see, then I think she’d be up for forgiving noise with a downright terrible-ass motherfucker like yourself. Thing I’m saying is, I guess, is don’t be pretending you know any one thing about our thorny-stemmed sister.”

For a moment it looked like Houston would say something, but then the moment was over, and his mouth was still and silent once more. He nodded gravely, eyes turned down humbly to the floor. It was a near impossible expression to read, and Mrs. Whitney had no time to try.

“Let’s go,” Quenby said, waving Gamzee and Terezi to leave before her.

“Wait,” Houston spoke up at last, and they turned to see what he had to say. He continued his staring game with the floor, and it almost seemed as though they had merely imagined that he had spoken. Then, without lifting his head, he continued. “You can’t keep me here for much longer. They’re already looking for me, and they won’t stop until they’ve found me, dead or alive. You’re going to have to release me within the next twenty-four hours, and when you do, I’ll know. I’ll know everything about my captors, and I’ll make sure they find you and put you on trial for treason.”

A long pause drew between Houston and his captors. Gamzee reached for Terezi’s hand once more, shook her arm gently, urged her silently to speak, to say something. But neither of them knew how to reply. Did they continue to persuade him, to entice him to their side? Did they scare him to the point of wanting to swallow back his words? 

It was difficult to speak of morals and ethics when their murderer desired his own death more than they did his. At which point was murder justifiable? Only in times of necessity? What determined that necessity?

Before either troll could reach a conclusion, Mrs. Whitney decided the next course of action for them. “Makara, Pyrope. Kill him.”

“Whoa, ma’am,” Gamzee was quick to reply, “We still have time we could be teaching him to want to be all good and shit. We could get him on our side, all worming on the inside of the political system. There’s a whole shitton of stuff this motherfucker could be using his hide for other than just pushing daisies.” He pleaded with their superior with an open, wounded demeanor, trying to appeal to Mrs. Whitney’s sense of mercy, but she remained stone cold.

“I appreciate your ability to sympathize with a murderer, I really do,” was her reply, though the softness of her words did not translate through with her tone, “but we have done far too much good on our own to risk letting the Senators uproot our institution.”

There was no mention of their lives, which surely would have been destroyed along with the institution if the government ever found out what happened behind their closed doors, and that sort of position appealed to Terezi. She sighed and released Gamzee’s hand, standing before him so that he could have visual proof of her change in mind. 

“Gamzee, hold him for me,” she commanded, and though she sounded assured and calm, her tail was quivering between her legs, twisting upon itself in something that struck Gamzee as something akin to shame. “I’m not asking twice.”

Houston tapped his foot gingerly to get her attention. “I won’t fight,” he promised.

“In the end, everyone fights,” Terezi shot back, and then returned her now smoldering glare to Gamzee, “Gamzee, now.”

Gamzee shook his head hard enough to whip himself in the face with his hair. “Mother fuck, no, sister, have you temporarily vacated from your think pan? I ain’t gonna pretend this son of a bitch is innocent, but you can smell him, then you can tell us… tell us if he means to change for the better.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Terezi argued, “even if he does want to change, that’s just now, we can’t take that chance, we can’t—”

“Kill him,” Mrs. Whitney repeated, “That was an order, Pyrope. I will hold him if need be.”

She moved to make good on her word, and Gamzee elbowed her gently out of the way. “’Scuse me, ma’am,” he said as he did so, a flat growl lacing his words, the complete opposite of polite, “Ain’t no good to let the ringleader get the red all over her paws when there are serving men to be running that show for her.” He kept his face turned away from her, and went behind Houston to undo his cuffs.

When Houston made a questioning noise, Terezi explained, “It’s a bitch to clean the blood stains out of that thing. Easier to just mop the floor.”

“Wait,” Houston said again, and it seemed his entire personality was changed. He had a new skip in his step as he went where Gamzee guided him. “I don’t know if trolls are capable of humanity… that is, kindness, or if it was all a big joke, but in the chance that you are, I just wanted to let you know. One of my newest experiments… they’re planning on using it in the battle at Gulliver tomorrow.”

Mrs. Whitney placed her hand on Houston’s shoulder, a smile breaking through her cold mask. “Thank you, Phineas.” She looked at Terezi and clicked her tongue. “Pyrope?”

Gamzee gripped Houston tight against his chest, pinning the man’s arms folded across his back. Houston struggled a bit uncomfortably. Terezi had been right. Even a man who claimed to want death fought it at the very end. It was just nature.

Terezi took Houston’s head between her talons, and quickly snapped it to the side.

\--

Lunch time was a relief for Rose, as well as everybody else. The students had a lot of new information that they had to swallow, and Rose had been growing bored of hearing a lesson she knew by heart. As every time before, their pupils had a hard time grasping the quadrant system, and needed it explained multiple times from many different angles. Thankfully, Siamak was more than prepared for that, and had a folder full of pamphlets, worksheets and photocopies of quotes from many influential members of troll society to reinforce his teachings.

Mary had even stepped forward at one point to explain her relationship with Redres and how they had been experimenting with the pale quadrant.

That had been news to Rose, who immediately asked, “So it’s official, hmm?” the first chance she got, once the classroom was filled with the sounds of students chattering away and packing away their supplies so that they could retreat to the cafeteria. 

“It is,” Mary replied, a bit of color to her cheeks as she admitted to it. Redres took her hand, and the blush deepened. “We are at last official.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Rose said, who meant it quite a deal. She had been waiting for them to call themselves moirails since she first met them, and Mary had placed a hand to Redres’s shoulder in a moment of spontaneous sympathy, which the troll, upon seeing the gesture as pale flirtation, had turned a startlingly bright bronze. “When was this arrangement decided upon?”

“Oh, in a most common fashion,” Mary answered, shrugging her shoulders, “except maybe for the location. I can’t indulge you with the specifics, but there may have been a roof involved.”

“Ahh, I see,” Rose chuckled, thinking of the roof where she herself had snuck off to once or twice for a private rendezvous with her pair of lovers, and which entry was completely forbidden, due to a safety hazard that everybody ignored. “At least tell me there was a heartfelt discussion.”

Redres growled under his breath, a sound of embarrassment. Before he could change the subject, Mary said, “Why, what romantic arrangement can be made without a heartfelt discussion? I’d rather drink my morning coffee without the cup.” Her eyes twinkled, and she added in a whisper, “I’d thought you’d be more intrusive and ask about the possibility of us building our first pile.”

“Marian!” Redres coughed loudly, face again the bronze color of their first meeting.

“I wasn’t going to go into detail of what was in the pile,” Mary assured him, “nor what happened, if anything, in said pile. Rose certainly wouldn’t desire for such saucy details.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I,” Rose joked, and she and Mary had a laugh that Redres pointedly ignored.

A small timid finger tapped at Rose’s shoulder, catching her attention. Rose and her friends turned to glance down at the younger woman, an ebony-skinned girl on the peak of womanhood. Beside her stood her male doppelgänger, their hair cut into identical military styles. They wore the lime-green robes of some magi-scientist’s apprentice, and obviously one of a high station, if the rare silk fabric of their dress was any clue to go by.

“May I help you?” Rose asked them, trying to bite back her lingering laughter so that she could appear at least somewhat professional.

The female twin gave a curtsey that was as endearing as the smile on her face. “Sorry for interrupting, but you are all scholars of the school, right? As in, you have enrolled to study and live here?” Her voice was soft, almost shy, but the glow of excitement was still easy to pick out even as she wavered over her words awkwardly.

“That’s right,” Rose agreed, “I’ve been enrolled here for three years now. Why do you ask?”

Her brother cut her off before she could answer, his voice as loud and brash as his sister’s had been demure. “What she means, or what she implied, is that we wish to learn here too. Not with the occasional classes we have to sign up for. We wish to devote ourselves to this place.”

“This place,” his sister added, “of course being the Q. Whitney Institution. We want to enroll as full-time scholars, just like you.”

“Which there is like, no information on, in your papers.” The male twin waved a stack of pamphlets at Rose like a fan to emphasize his point. “It’s not professional to leave out important stuff. How does one join your ranks?” Although his manner of addressing them was uncouth, his eyes sparkled with sincere interest. This was what prompted Rose to take their inquiring seriously.

It wasn’t anything new. Many people often asked about joining, and just as every other question they were used to receiving, they had a scripted response.

“Well, students who show a great interest in the various studies we have to offer, and who come to help out with our community service events, will often be asked or will ask about enrolling full-time,” Rose recited, “At which point they will be paired with a full-time scholar, like someone as myself, to mentor them and see if enrolling full-time is something that they have the motivation and time to be invested in. If it’s a good match, Mrs. Whitney will have an interview with them, and if their credentials all come out clean, then they are given the invitation to enroll. New scholars are often only sought out during times when we need extra helping hands, which is why we don’t freely advertise.”

“Can we request you as our mentor, then?” The male twin asked, as though having not listened to the majority of what Rose had said.

Instead of answering, Rose smirked and shook her head. “What’s your name?”

“I am Cal, and this is Callie. We are twins.” Cal replied curtly, especially at the last few words, as though he didn’t mean for anyone to understand them. “And you are Lalonde, Rose. Will you mentor us?”

Clearly he had no patience for anything. Rose ignored him and turned to Callie. “What is it about the Institute that attracts you? What experiences have you had with trolls or with prejudice which drove you to want to devote your life to educating people about the various xeno-studies?”

Callie brightened under the sudden attention, and took a moment to think the question over. “Well, I don’t have much experience with trolls at all—that’s kind of why I’m here! To fill in the gaps of my ignorance. The few trolls I have met seem to be… so exotic. But not dangerous, just… interesting. Different isn’t always a bad thing, and in my experience has been more the opposite. It just strikes me as odd how little humans are taught about trolls. They even define love differently than we do… but in the end, it’s still all love, isn’t it?” 

“I do hope they are not bothering you, Miss Rose.” 

Beside her, Rose sensed Mary and Redres tense and move closer together. She didn’t blame them. Senator Scratch’s voice was dripping with sweetness to the point of making Rose queasy.

Rose stepped towards Scratch, moving between the twins to do so. “Senator,” she said simply.

Senator Scratch, as smug as ever, reached out a hand to pull Callie’s head against his side in what was probably supposed to pass for a fatherly gesture. “It’s been a long time, Miss Rose. It’s so very good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” Rose lied outright. She looked at the dark twins, and then to Scratch’s ghost-pale complexion. “Are these… your children?”

“No!” Cal puffed himself up, rejecting the very idea with his entire body, “We are working as Senator Scratch’s apprentices. My sister and I are highly skilled telekinetics, who can move objects. Through time for me and my sister does space. One day we’ll be Senators too. If we work hard enough.”

“Apprentices to the Senator,” Rose repeated, trying her best to sound pleased, “How wonderful. I wasn’t aware that xenology was a prerequisite for a life of politics.” She clasped her hands together, brain reeling, trying to process this new information and rationalize the best response to it. “But don’t you think that would be a rather tight schedule, studying full-time at our institute in addition to however many hours a day you study with Senator Scratch?”

Rubbing a gloved hand across Cal’s shoulder, Senator Scratch shook his head with that eternal sickly sweet smile. “Oh, you misunderstand. Cal and Callie seek to take a break from my lessons to study what I cannot teach them. Surely enrolling at the institute isn’t a life sentence?” He chuckled at his own joke, and Rose tried not to flinch. “It’s important for my apprentices to have a more open mind than their preceding generation of Senators. They are your future, Rose.” He pulled both of the twins to him as though showing them off. “From what I like to pretend to know of you, I’d imagine you’d leap at the chance to broaden their vision.”

Watching the Senator, wondering just how stupid he thought she was, Rose cleared her throat and forced a smile. “That certainly would be a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“Though,” Scratch went on, cutting off the end of her sentence, “there is one thing about you that has caused me endless nights of head-scratching and pondering.” He paused, waiting for her anticipation. “I know what happened at Dwellurn, Rose. You must be made of incredible stuff to live through that, and not seek revenge. I don’t think even I would have that much self-discipline. How do you manage that, Miss Rose? What’s your secret?”

“I could wipe out every man and woman who were responsible for the tragedy at Dwellurn,” Rose replied automatically, “but that would solve little. Children everywhere, human and troll, will still be bombed. Families will be torn apart, countless will find themselves refugees. Those men and women are not my enemy; they were merely the tools my true enemy used to get to me.”

Scratch watched her, the curve of his lip slipping for a fraction of a second, then it was back, even as Cal and Callie shifted uncomfortably on the heels of their feet. “So you seek to wipe out ignorance instead? Sort of a tough job, don’t you think?”

“Try improbable, Senator,” Rose laughed, “It’s likely I’ll drive myself to death taking upon such a task.”

“Wait,” Callie raised a finger up to her chest, her voice trembling over her words at first, “What happened at Dwellurn? That’s a planet, right?”

At first, Rose was certain Scratch would answer his apprentice, but then he gave Rose a nod.

“It was once one of the troll’s planets,” Rose explained, keeping her own voice smooth and unreadable, “before a tribe of humans moved there. They were convinced that the trolls could be reasoned with, and wanted to prove to the universe that the two races could co-exist. They called it the Kokoto project, after the Chief troll of the first tribe they met. Chief Kokoto and the human’s Chief English prepared a festival for the first night they stayed together. Before long, a fight broke out between a human man and a troll man. Chief English feared for the safety of his people, as the trolls outnumbered them, but Chief Kokoto told English that his man had misunderstood: the supposed fight, which is what had been seen from a human’s point of view, was called a caliginous flirtation among the trolls. Kokoto sat the two quarrelling men down and after a long conversation, pledged herself as their auspistice. Every year since, we celebrate the Day of Kokoto’s Clubs, which we also call Season’s Dwelling. We celebrate our differences, feast all throughout the day and night, and act out stories of the first interactions between trolls and humans, and how the disputes were resolved.

“Unfortunately, the Kokoto project never became popular amongst other planets, and Dwellurn’s rich history became regarded more of a myth. Three years ago, when the war broke out, Dwellurn was caught between two quarrelling planets, and became a battleground. Some of the human troops from Evenkia… mistook the local trolls for enemy soldiers, something, it’s not clear. But there were very few survivors. All of them, like myself,” Rose finished, “are refugees.”

Rose blinked quickly, coughing and shuffling her feet. How long had it been since she thought about Season’s Dwelling? Even though the date was engrained in her mind, she hadn’t celebrated it since, well, Dwellurn’s demise. 

“So they’re dead,” Cal asked, raising an eyebrow at Rose, “All of them. Friends and family?” 

Even Rose, with all her ability to read people, wasn’t able to tell if Cal meant his words to be hurtful or inquisitive. His face provided no further clues.

“I’m not sure,” Rose admitted after she gave up on trying to puzzle it out, “I watched my mother die, but my friends… like me, they could still be out there, among the stars. How does that old saying go? ‘Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst’?”

Cal looked Rose straight in the eye. “How do you prepare for death?”

His sister turned to him in horror. “Cal! Don’t be rude!” Callie turned to Rose, giving a few bows of her head. “Miss, I’m so sorry for my brother, pay him no mind.”

For a heavy moment, Rose stood there, meeting Cal’s line of sight but not looking at him. She cleared her throat, coughed again, and then took the folds of her skirt into her hands so that she could give a somewhat hurried curtsey. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said.

“Certainly,” Scratch said.

Face concealed under the droop of her hood, Rose retreated down the hall.

\--

Most of her tears had been wiped away by the time Rose arrived at the door to her room, though she still had to check in a mirror to monitor the puffiness of her eyes. Before she could turn the knob, however, she heard a rather familiar sniffle, and paused.

What was Gamzee doing in her room, Rose wondered, and why was he crying?

Opening the door, she nearly jumped out of her skin when almost walked right into Mrs. Whitney. Rose swallowed back her rather unprofessional yelp of surprise and tried to force a smile onto her face. “Oh, Mrs. Whitney,” she said, “You scared me. To what do I owe the—”

Over Mrs. Whitney’s shoulder, curled around each other on the bed, Gamzee and Terezi attempted to hide their faces in one another, but the purple and teal streaks on their cheeks gave them away.

“What’s wrong?” Rose’s stomach plummeted to the depths of her toes, her lungs seeming to collapse upon themselves as she fought to claim enough oxygen from them to speak, “What’s going on? Gamzee, Terezi?”

Mrs. Whitney tossed the orb in her hands to Rose, who scrambled forward to catch it. “Can we talk about this for a moment, Lalonde?”

Rose turned to place the orb back on its stand, and then turned back to Mrs. Whitney. She unfolded her arms with great difficulty. She had nothing to feel guilty about, she reminded herself, so there was no reason to appear so. “My memory orb? Absolutely. What about it, precisely, would you like to discuss?”

“Specifically what it was doing in the interrogation room,” Mrs. Whitney answered, “without my permission to be there.”

“Should I have asked for permission?” Rose wasted no time in replying, “If so, I apologize.”

Mrs. Whitney let out a barely audible sigh, cupping her chin in a palm. “Lalonde, let’s not play games today. Why wouldn’t you need my permission?”

“Well, you’re always so busy,” Rose answered, “and this wasn’t a topic urgent enough to steal the little precious hours of free time you do have. That’s not to say that I was going to keep it to myself forever, just until my experimentations provided sufficient results to provide to you.”

Changing tactics, Mrs. Whitney took a few steps to the side, walking closer to the bed and the trolls. “Lalonde,” she said, “You know that I have no small amount of gratitude towards you and what you have done for the institute. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t even have a business to speak of. However, in order to carry on the business with some degree of professionalism, a sense of loyalty must be followed. I’m sure you can see that sneaking into and planting magical artifacts for unknown purposes may reflect badly on that overall professionalism.”

Rose laughed, hiding her mouth as she turned away, a bit embarrassed by her own instant response. “I’m sorry,” she apologized when Mrs. Whitney stared her down with a complete lack of amusement, “I hope I’m not the only one who finds humor in someone getting in trouble for going behind authority in a career that specializes in going behind authority.”

“Lalonde.”

“I was just pointing out the humor,” Rose began to defend herself.

“The law is corrupt, which is why we don’t follow it. Are you suggesting that my authority in this establishment is corrupt?” Mrs. Whitney’s no-nonsense attitude sobered Rose up fairly quickly. “Do you honestly not see your own mistake? Look at Makara. He had to witness what was in the orb, and it nearly caused a scene. Lucky for me, Pyrope was there to pacify him in your place.”

A wave of nausea hit Rose like a monsoon, and she turned to Gamzee, their boss forgotten. For half a second, she was terrified that he would push her away. The moment passed, and he reached for her.

Terezi helped, grabbing Rose’s clothes so that she could pull her between them, arms shifting and nearly elbowing each other as they shuffled around to find a position that made sure each of them was touching both of the others. 

There was a flurry of teeth against skin, as Rose was bombarded on both sides by nicks at her cheeks and shoulders. She tried to return the ashen kisses as best she could, tasting the salt on their faces.

“I’m so sorry,” was the first thing Rose said, and suddenly Gamzee was crying again, loud noisy gulps that made Rose tear up in return. She held him against her bosom, knotted her fingers up in his curls, placed kisses across his scalp and forehead. Terezi nosed at Rose’s neck, sharp fangs tugging at her neck demandingly, until Rose reached an arm back to cup the back of her head, grabbing a handful of her hair as well, keeping them flush against her body, as though either was about to leave.

Mrs. Whitney gave an uncomfortable “ahum”, and turned her head slightly to the side. “I’ll be back later, after dinner, and we’ll have a talk about these experiments. Until then, I’ll leave you three alone. I’m sure you have a lot to talk over.”

“Thank you,” Rose replied, and proceeded to bury her face in Gamzee’s mane. He honked weakly in protest that his hair was not meant to be used as tissues, but another kiss silenced him.

“Why,” Gamzee asked simply.

“Hurting you was not my intention,” Rose defended herself, petting him softly, but he shook her touch away. She grimaced, and added, “You weren’t supposed to—”

“To know?” Gamzee’s voice was laced with bitterness, “You kept secrets from me.”

Rose tried to hug him closer, to reassure him with her movements that she never wanted to exclude him from anything, but he pulled away, his fangs digging at his lower lip. He raised his head, face a creepy mess of purple stains and streaked paint. “You and Terezi both. Kept the secrets between the two of you like I wasn’t even part of these ash leaves with you. Walked into that cyclone of bad thoughts and found my own thorny-stemmed sister behind the trigger. How the mother fuck do you think that makes me feel?”

“Shoosh.” Rose took his horn firmly when Gamzee tried to pull away, rubbing her hand over his head. “I said ‘shoosh’, goddammit.” Terezi was stiff and silent behind her as Rose glared Gamzee down, until his expression went slack. “I am so very sorry, but at least allow me to explain.”

A pause, and then, “Fine.”

They shifted around her, and Rose was afraid they would pull away, but they only nestled closer. She let out a sigh of relief, and closed her eyes, trying to will the flow of tears to stop.

“Revenge,” she said through the lump at her throat, “against our real enemy. If others could see what we’ve seen… maybe the fighting would stop. Maybe people would learn that even if trolls and humans are different, we can be… we can co-exist.

“But I promise… I never meant to keep it a secret. Even Terezi didn’t know all the details.” Rose glanced to Terezi, who confirmed her statement with a somber nod of her head. Gamzee relaxed a bit, and nudged his way under Rose’s chin in a canine fashion. “Go on,” he whispered, and Rose tried not to swallow too audibly with the clown so close. 

“In fact… I kept it a secret merely to keep it a surprise. I didn’t want to spoil it, so to speak, until I had conclusive evidence to surprise you with.” Rose shook her head. “Now that I’m saying this all aloud, it sounds so ridiculous. Yet… every night I dream of them.” She stopped, wondering if she had hurt either by bringing it up, but Gamzee was silent, and Terezi murmured a soft, “Me, too.” Now the tears were flowing again, and Rose wiped at them before they could be spotted. “I wanted to share all of that with the world. If they knew the pain I felt, then surely…”

Suddenly Gamzee began to laugh, a rather hollow sound, and Rose couldn’t help but flinch at the suddenness.

Before she could wonder if she should have been hurt, Gamzee nipped Rose’s nose. “It’s like you got yourself a big mother fuckin’ ashen boner for the whole damn universe, chica. How are me and dragonbitch supposed to all compete with the rest of the galaxy?”

Oh, thank goodness. Rose felt the tension drain from her shoulders. A hint of a curl appeared at the corner of Gamzee’s mouth, and Rose knew that things were alright again. Ashen relationships were demanding enough, especially as the mediator, while everyone was on good terms. She placed a firm pap to the side of his head in gratitude. “Oh, I think you’re doing a good job so far.”

Behind her, Terezi took the fabric of Rose’s dress in her mouth and gave a kittenish shake at it. It was ridiculously endearing, and Rose melted against her. 

It seemed to Rose that the moment had been heroically restored to the general vexing camaraderie that held their misfit trio together. It hadn’t be exactly easy to keep their auspisticism together without the strain of their other quadrants to keep the tension there, but thankfully Gamzee and Terezi had enough personal issues for Rose’s continued service to be, to Rose’s great relief, necessary.

Rose kept her trolls close for a while, petting Gamzee as he purred, and leaning her weight against Terezi, continuing to nibble at the fabric in her mouth. Used to Terezi’s odd oral fascination by now, Rose paid it no mind.

“I think,” Terezi began slowly, “I think I want to contribute to the orb, if that’s possible.”

Was it possible? Rose hadn’t considered it, but she was sure it wouldn’t be hard to figure out. She turned her head back, trying to look Terezi in the eye. “Are you sure? The memories become rather vivid when you transfer them to the orb. Even after you’ve done so, the memory stays vivid in your mind for quite a while.”

“Think I couldn’t handle it? Ha!” Terezi grinned, showing off her pearly whites. “You underestimate me, Rose.”

“Oh, never.” Rose rolled her eyes, reaching an arm back awkwardly to ruffle her hair.

\--

The orb gave off a gentle glow, casting three shadows across the wall. Terezi sat closest to the orb, with Rose near her on one side, and Mrs. Whitney observing from the back of the room. 

“Alright,” Mrs. Whitney said, “Show me how this works.”

Rose took Terezi’s hand in hers, and then the other, and guided them to either side of the orb. She concentrated for a moment, and soon Terezi’s hands took on a glimmer of their own. “Okay,” Rose explained, “The connection has been made. Now, Terezi, concentrate on a memory, any memory, and feed it to the orb. Tell a story with it. Include smell, taste, sounds, whatever senses you can. Emotions, as well. Especially emotions. The more senses you include, the stronger the memory will become.”

 

_The world tasted like death. Sulfur and soot and sometimes, the flash of charcoal and metallic blood. Terezi tried to even out her breathing, hands over her mouth and nose, taking in the familiar taste of her own skin, though it was salty with sweat. She kept her eyes closed against the flames dancing around her; it’s wasn’t as though she could see them anyway, and the smoke was making her tear up._

_She knew that if she didn’t start moving, she would end up burning, or being crushed under the weight of the building when it finally collapsed. Yet she found herself unable to take a single step. The heat and fire were blurring her smell-sight, and the paralyzing horror of stepping into the fire by mistake kept her rooted to the spot. She could, she supposed, use the heat on her skin to help determine how close the fire was, just she already felt too hot, and was certain that any second the flames would consume her._

_The crack of wood splintering had Terezi flinching, curling her tail between her legs, quivering. She knew she must have looked like a wriggler, but the teenaged troll found herself incapable of caring about anything other than her safety._

_Another crack came, and Terezi wondered if the building was already falling. If so, she had less time than she imagined, and she had to get moving._

_With herculean strength, she forced her foot forward slowly, wiggling her taloned toes to test the ground before her. She found herself shaking, having a hard time figuring out how to place the sole of her foot down flat against the floor. If she kept this up, she’d end up stupidly spraining her own ankle or something, she knew._

_Pressing her hand over her face harder, Terezi took a long inhale, coughed back the smoke, and focused on her surroundings. The blur of gray and red sharpened for just a moment, and Terezi held onto the image in her mind. With a renewed confidence, she took another step._

_“Terezi!”_

_The dragonoid troll froze more still than she knew she was capable of, muscles clenched like coiled iron chains to keep her statuesque form. What was Gamzee doing here? She was sure she had seen him escaping by himself earlier._

_“Gamzee, did you find Terezi?”_

_“Right over here, sister!”_

_Rose was here, too? Terezi’s blood pusher thumped against her ribcage hard, and she wasn’t sure whether her relief or her concern for them was her dominant emotion._

_Terezi tried to take another large breath so that she could figure out Gamzee’s location in regards to her own, but immediately regretted the burn in her lungs. She instinctively pulled her wings over her, trying to barricade herself from the toxic air around her._

_“No, no, stay back. I got this.” Terezi listened as Gamzee spoke to Rose, and though she tried to argue, Gamzee was persistent. “I got this, I mother fuckin’ said!”_

_Within the crackle and pop of the fire, Terezi heard Gamzee’s footsteps as he approached her, but still she hadn’t probably braced herself for him to yank her wings apart, stuffing his sour grape face right into her personal space. His breath was rancid, but at least it didn’t hurt to breathe in._

_“I got you, chica,” he said, and his hands were ice cold on her wrists._

_Still Terezi resisted, her toes hooking into the floor. She shook her head, a sudden panic seizing her body. Gamzee was too clumsy, too absentminded. He’d accidentally walk her into the fire before saving her. Terezi tried to explain this to Gamzee, but even to her own ears it came out as gibberish._

_“Don’t waste your breath,” Gamzee demanded, shaking her, “C’mon.”_

_“What’s going on over there?” Rose’s voice was unusually shaken. It was the first time Terezi had heard a hitch in her speech before, and the terror of the situation hit Terezi anew._

_Gamzee’s tugging on her ceased, and Terezi latched her claws into him, terrified he’d abandon her._

_“She ain’t budging, Rose!”_

_“I can’t see!” Terezi shrieked, and her nails dug deeper, and now that she was making sense again it became the only thing she could say, a chorus of, “I can’t see, I can’t see, I can’t see, I can’t see!”_

_She heard the hiss of Gamzee’s breath, trying to disentangle her from his flesh, but she only clung tighter, scrambled to keep a hold on him, drawing more and more of that sour stench that was such a sweet reprieve from the biting spice of the molten red closing in around her. “I can’t see,” she told him again, “I can’t—”_

_A fit of coughing broke her concentration, and suddenly Gamzee was all around her, hand stroking down her spine._

_“Terezi, listen to me,” Rose called, her voice sounding oceans away, “You have to trust Gamzee. He’s going to bring you to me, alright? Remember all those trust exercises we did? This is just like that. Trust Gamzee.”_

_Terezi found herself whimpering, shaking her head. She wanted to say, “I can’t.” Her throat hurt too much to try._

_“Terezi, please.”_

_Trust exercises. Terezi forced herself to remember, to recall what she would do, what little tricks she had made up, to allow herself to give herself up to her ex-kismesis. The truth was, Terezi didn’t trust Gamzee. She wanted to, but it was too hard. Moving was too hard. Breathing had become near impossible. It was just all too hard._

_“Terezi… please.” That one was Gamzee, surprisingly, and Terezi whined against his jugular._

_After a moment though, Terezi loosened her grip, and Gamzee’s hand griped hers. “Hang on,” he whispered against her forehead, “Keep low to the ground.”_

_Terezi relaxed, and let Gamzee lead._


End file.
